


I Put a Spell on You

by KagekaNecavi



Category: Avengers Assemble (Cartoon), Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Animal Transformation, Cap_Ironman Tiny Reverse Bang, Cat Tony Stark, Established Relationship, Fluff, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Humor, M/M, Partial Animal Transformation, Stony Bingo 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 01:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8124940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KagekaNecavi/pseuds/KagekaNecavi
Summary: Tony is out costume shopping when things get decidedly hairy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is for [Round 14](http://capim-tinybang.tumblr.com/post/150533808165/title-cats-eyes-artist-onebilliondelights) of the Cap Iron Man Tiny Reverse Bang, [Nomad (click here for full images at the artist's tumblr, including shirtless Tony and Tony cuddled in a hoodie)](http://onebilliondelights.tumblr.com/post/146001279365/my-submission-for-the-cap-im-trb-2016-the-theme-i). This also fulfils my [bingo square](http://cap-ironman.livejournal.com/1595568.html?thread=12805808) “sharing clothes.” Though really it’s more like stealing clothes, lol.
> 
> This is Avengers Assemble and I know Rhodey hasn’t been introduced in AA yet but fuck that noise. If you’ve never seen AA it is very similar to everywhere else, except for some reason - connecting with the audience, idk - Sam starts out as like a teenager. That is mentioned in the fic in passing, so I figured I’d mention it here. Also oops I noticed partway through that the Tony in the picture has no arc reactor but AA Tony definitely does. OH WELL.
> 
> There's one slight warning in the end notes and also sort of spoilery discussion of stuff in the fic.
> 
> Edit October 9 2016: marumo0804 over on tumblr made fanart for this!! It is absolutely gorgeous and Steve and Tony are so expressive! [Here's the link!](http://marumo0804.tumblr.com/post/151550048005/i-read-kagekanecavi-s-aa-stony-halloween-fic-and) You should go check it out and let them know you think it's pretty!

“Why are you doing this?” Rhodey asked, arching his eyebrows as he watched Tony search through the costumes.

“Because normally I go as Captain America for Halloween. I can’t exactly do that when I’m dating him, can I?” Tony said, peeking at Rhodey over the racks. Rhodey rolled his eyes.

“Didn’t you just go as yourself last year? I mean, not as yourself but you didn’t dress up at all.”

“We have a party this year. I do actually need a costume,” Tony said, “So I need something good.” Rhodey rolled his eyes again, but smiled. Tony knew that expression. That was the ‘I’m going to pretend to be frustrated with you but I’m really having a good time,’ expression. He got that from Rhodey a lot. And Steve, too, now that he thought about it.

“I’m guessing I have to come to the Halloween party?” Rhodey flipped through the rack idly, not really looking.

“Definitely. And you should stay at Avengers Tower while you’re in town. Not just because of me. There’s somebody I want you to meet. We’ve got this kid on the team, Sam Wilson. Young, into science and engineering, started off in SHIELD, and he’s black. He’s never mentioned it but I think he’s kind of always wanted to meet you,” Sam’s secret identity wasn’t public, but there was only one person on their team that fit that description.

“The Falcon is a _kid_?”

“Well. Kid enough. He was in SHIELD’s training program and was clearly destined for better things so I snatched him from under their noses. If he was ready for that then he’s ready for this,” Tony shrugged.

“Yeah you’re probably right. And I imagine it’s safer working with you than working with SHIELD. Though Fury does keep a good eye on his people,” Rhodey made a face as soon as he said it and Tony laughed at the unintentional pun. He shook his head and clasped Tony’s shoulder, “I’ve got to go - I’ve got some stuff to do before I can get settled in at yours. See you later?”

“Yeah, text me when you’re on your way so I can make sure that if I’m not there someone is expecting you,” Tony nodded. He pulled Rhodey in for a hug and then let him go with a wave.

* * *

 

Tony opened his eyes and groaned in pain, his head and ass aching. That wasn’t a good combination. What the fuck had happened? He was staring at the ceiling of a warehouse and he wasn’t alone. Around him milled a large group of people, all of them in some kind of Halloween costume or another. Except … all of the costumes looked far too real. They didn’t look anything like _real_  versions of those monsters did, the ones that actually existed. But they still acted like people. The monsters weren’t aggressive - none of the zombies or werewolves or vampires were trying to attack anyone - but the rotting flesh and the fur and the fangs all looked and smelled very real.

He groaned as he stood and held a hand to his head and that’s when he felt it. Large, fuzzy ears on the top of his head. What the fuck?

“Hey, aren’t you Tony Stark?” A woman nearby asked. She was translucent and all of her clothes, from her shoes to her top hat, were sparkling.

“Yeah. What’s going on?” Tony looked her up and down. She was floating several inches off the floor and looked really freaked out. “I take it you aren’t normally a … ghost?”

“No, I’m not. This is my Halloween costume. I was on my way to a party and the next thing I knew I was here.”

Hearing that one of the vampires spoke up, lisping a little through the large fangs in his mouth, “Me, too.”

“I was trying on a costume,” a sullen looking teenager in a gaudy cowboy outfit said. Tony frowned a little. That didn’t exactly look like a _Halloween_  costume. More like a tear away costume, the kind strippers or bored couples wore.

“So was I, actually. Well. Sort of,” Tony glanced down at himself. There was a thick black cat tail coming from his tailbone and now that he concentrated he could feel it, the same way he could feel his hands or feet. It was just the tail and the ears, though. He’d been awake long enough to be able to concentrate more now, to remember what he’d been doing before he woke up there, and he remembered putting the ears and tail on and posing in the mirror of a Halloween store and laughing. And that was it.

He felt his pockets and found his cell phone was still there, but when he pulled it out it wouldn’t turn on. Was it just drained or was it damaged irreparably? That would be a problem for later. The Arc Reactor was still working and that was honestly more important.

The tail thrashed a little, unhappily, and he could feel his ears twitch. Oh great. This was just awesome.

Time to take charge.

He glanced around a bit more, looked beyond the others. They were in a cage, but it didn’t look all that sturdy. In fact, depending on just how many of the abilities of these beings that different people had gotten, they could probably get out if they tried.

“Okay, everybody!” Tony said, raising his voice enough to be heard over the ambient noise of the group. Most of them stopped talking and looked at him right away and if not right away they stopped soon afterwards. “Thanks! Now, I’m not sure what’s going on or why we’re here, but I do know that the fact that we’re in a cage in a warehouse isn’t good. So! Anybody changed into something that seems strong? And I mean _really_  strong.”

“Yeah, you’ve gotta see this!” a mechanical voice called from halfway across the cage. The crowd parted to show the person who’d called out. They were dressed like an astronaut, but they were standing next to someone who - Tony burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny!” The guy snapped, pouting and turning his back on them.

“Oh come on, Hulk Hands, it’s a little funny,” Tony laughed. The guy’s dark skin faded into green halfway down his forearms, where the Hulk’s hands had replaced his own.

The guy looked at Tony and snickered a little, seeming to be at least somewhat amused by the ears and tail. After a moment he turned back to them and said, “Okay, fine. I’m not sure if the hands mean I have the strength though.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Tony shrugged and gestured to the door of the cage. “After you.” Everyone else backed up a little while the guy with Hulk hands stepped up to the door and pulled his fist back. He hit the door square on the lock and it burst open with a bang. The whole group cheered and one of the zombies started for the door, but Tony stopped her.

“We need to stick together. Our best shot at figuring out what happened is if you come with me and we get the Avengers on it,” he said, looking from her to the others, pumping as much confidence in his words as he could while being the proud owner of cat ears and a tail.

The group grumbled a little bit but eventually agreed to follow Tony to Avengers Tower. It was their best chance of figuring out why they’d all become living Halloween costumes, after all. Tony didn’t lead them directly there, though. He found the first place he figured he could call the Tower and phoned for a pick up, then they waited.

* * *

 

“Okay, what the hell?” Clint asked when the ramp on the quinjet opened up and he saw the group. “I know you hang out with a weird crowd, Tony, but this is ridiculous.”

“You’re hilarious,” Tony said dryly. “Hey, did Rhodey ever make it to the Tower?”

“Yeah, like three hours ago,” Clint nodded. He stood back as the Halloween costume victims got on board and got comfortable, flinching back and making a face as one of the ghosts passed by him. “He was starting to freak out a little actually.”

“Why?” Tony frowned. What had happened to make Rhodey freak out?

“Tony,” Steve said from the front, his tone gentle, “You told him that if he texted someone would know he was coming. Well, he did and then when he showed up nobody knew. He knew that meant something had happened to you. Of course he was worried about you.”

“Oh, yeah. Right,” Tony nodded. “Well, I’m relatively okay. I just … I have a tail and cat ears now.”

“And no human ears,” Sam noticed from where he’d been peering at the side of Tony’s head.

“Thank you for your detailed attention to my anatomy,” Tony said dryly. Of course the observation would probably help, but it did make him feel vulnerable, and kinda … freakish.

“Where are we going to house all of your friends?” Steve asked, glancing around. “Not that we shouldn’t keep track of them while this is getting fixed, but there’s about twenty or twenty five of them.”

“There’s room in Avengers Tower, on the lower levels. It might be tight, but there’s room,” Tony sat next to Steve and leaned against him a bit. Steve was nice and warm and he felt really, really good. Steve looked down at him with a little smile, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“Was this going to be your Halloween costume?” he asked quietly, eyes darting between the ears and tail.

“Nah, I was just messing around,” Tony shook his head, nuzzling against Steve a little bit. That felt really good. Better than contact usually felt. Tony opened his eyes, unaware that he’d even closed them. “We need to be careful. The longer we stay like this the more like our … costumes we may get.”

“You get cat-like, the vampires start craving blood, the zombies crave brains?” Steve asked with a frown.

“I think so, yeah,” Tony nodded. “We might want to quarantine the ones that could get violent.”

“And we need to talk to Stephen Strange. He might know why this is happening, or at least how to fix it.” Steve’s hand moved up a little and brushed the bottom fringe of Tony’s hair a little but then he moved it away and asked, “Can I touch them?”

“Yeah, go on.” Tony nodded and Steve’s hand returned to Tony’s hair, stroking through it and touching one of the ears gently, rubbing over it affectionately. Tony let his eyes close again and leaned against Steve more, staying there until they got back to the Tower.

* * *

 

Rhodey laughed when he saw Tony, reaching out and ruffling his hair and the fuzzy ears. Tony frowned but let him do it. They got the others settled in on the lower levels of the tower, sorting people out by what their ‘costumes’ were and making sure they were placed together based on that, just in case any dangerous traits emerged.

While they did that they also got to talking and discovered a pretty obvious pattern. Aside from the costumes themselves, of course. As far as they remembered they had all been in the same part of town when whatever had gone into effect had happened. That was a good start, at least, knowing that it was localized.

Once everyone was settled in Tony went up to his and Steve’s bedroom and took his shirt off, looking in the mirror, twisting and turning to try and see where the tail was coming out of his ass. It was visible just above his jeans, which were sitting a little lower than normal to allow for the tail to move comfortably.

“Yeah, because that looks normal,” Tony muttered, shaking his head. He reached down and touched the tail where it came out of his ass, shivering a little at the tingle that ran all the way up his spine. He felt all the way down the tail to the end, flexed his muscles while he was holding the tail and felt it thrash in his grip. It was so strange to suddenly have an extra limb. He felt like he should be off balance, but he wasn’t.

Eventually he reached up and ran his fingers over his velvety ears, and they twitched a little, the way cat ears tended to do when you played with them. Which made a lot of sense, to be honest.

“There you are,” Steve said and Tony looked back at the door with a small smile. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just … when I see it in the mirror I don’t think it’s me. I think it can’t be me. Then I touch it and feel it and it _is_ me. It’s disorienting,” Tony said with a glance back in the mirror. Steve walked over to him and gave him a hug, kissing his cheek.

“It is a little unusual. But Stephen Strange is investigating the area you all were at when you changed, so you should be back to your cat-less self soon.” Steve gently rubbed small, soothing circles into Tony’s hip as he spoke. The touch felt very nice and Tony made a small noise of pleasure that, after a moment, changed into a low, rumbling purr.

It didn’t last long though.

The moment Tony realized he was purring he stopped, mortified, and went very still.

“Aww, no, honey!” Steve laughed a little, kissing his cheek, “That was good, I liked it! It let me know I was touching you in all the right places.” He accentuated the remark with a squeeze to Tony’s ass.

“Captain America is such a perv,” Tony twisted around and nuzzled against Steve’s neck with a grin, “And no one believes me about it, either. Just like they never believe me about your sarcastic streak.”

“I like having a side only you see. Now how about we get you purring again, huh?”

* * *

 

“Is that Steve’s hoodie?” Natasha asked two hours later when the Avengers got back together in the living room, Stephen Strange standing there with a large book in his hands.

“What? It’s cold,” Tony said, scrunching down in the hoodie. It totally was cold, too. And the hoodie smelled like Steve, which normally wouldn’t be enough for him to wear it but he felt like his sense of smell was a little stronger now or something because he wanted to smell like Steve and wanted to make Steve smell like him.

Which was weird, but whatever. He really wanted to not be part cat anymore and to stop having these weird instincts before he tried to claw something.

“Sure it is, Tones,” Rhodey said, nodding.

“Cats are covered in fur. So if this … whatever is making him think like a cat maybe he’s expecting to be as warm as he would be if he were fur covered?” Sam suggested.

“That is entirely within the realm of the spell,” Strange nodded and flipped open the book he held, consulting one of the pages.

“So you figured it out?” Steve smiled as he spoke, reaching into the pocket of the hoodie to grasp Tony’s hand. Tony could feel his cheeks heat a little. Holding his hand inside of a hoodie pocket was such a sappy romantic thing to do and Tony loved it.

“Yes. It seems that this spell book is of Chthon, god of chaos. The spells range from the minor and inconvenient to the complex and disastrous. SHIELD is helping me hold the spellcaster in custody. This spell, fortunately, was miscast. It is actually intended as a sleeping spell - when people fall asleep the spell keeps them as they are. The spellcaster is inexperienced and put too much emphasis on the ‘be as you are’ part of the spell. It backfired and this is the result,” Strange gestured to Tony, whose tail was thrashing a little.

“And you can undo it?” Tony asked. Even this was the result of a backfire, that sounded like it would get progressively worse.

“Of course. Just get all of the victims together and I’ll break it.” Strange nodded.

It didn’t take them long to gather everyone together, considering they were mostly where they’d been left, and it looked like they were just in time. Some of the vampires were complaining about being thirsty and one of the werewolves looked like he was getting fleas. That could have been unrelated, though.

They seemed like they were getting agitated, so before Strange got started Tony got the group’s attention and said, loudly, “If you all want to leave your contact info I’ll get in touch with everybody and I’ll throw us a Stark sponsored party sometime _after_  Halloween - no costumes allowed!” They chuckled and Tony added, “Of course if you don’t want anything to do with the rest of us after this that’s understandable, too.”

The group was a little more relaxed after that so Strange got started. It only took him a few moments to break the spell and once it was done Tony’s cat ears and tail became a headband and a clip-on tail, the ghost turned out to be a sheet with a sequined top hat, Hulk Hands’ yanked off the Hulk hands and tossed them in the corner, and in general everyone’s costumes became the mundane things that had created them.

“Thank fuck that’s over with,” Tony sighed. He shook hands with Stephen Strange and thanked him for his help, then organized the task of getting all of the victims out of the Tower and home safe.

When it was all done with he was just going to find Steve when Steve found him and pressed a mug of hot chocolate into his hands.

“Oooh awesome,” Tony said taking a sip and burning his tongue immediately. After all the coffee through the years you’d think his tongue would be scald proof, but nope, apparently not.

“You deserve it. We had a very strange day, especially for us,” Steve said. He had his own mug of hot chocolate in hand and gently led Tony back to their quarters.

“By the way this sweatshirt is mine now,” Tony informed him, snuggling into it. He was still kind of cold. Maybe that had to do with the fact he didn’t have a regular shirt on under the sweatshirt. “Except when I need it to smell like you again. Then you can have it back for a while.”

Steve laughed. “Of course, honey.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, slight warning. Tony spends some time staring in the mirror going 'wtf' and while this is a fantasy scenario, I do want to warn anyone for that because I imagine that if you have body image issues or dysphoria and you are having a bad day or are easily set off in your headspace right now maybe it might upset you. (I'm trans, I get it - I used to freak out about body stuff over the littlest things before I went on hormones and leveled out a little.)
> 
> Part of the reason I picked Avengers Assemble is because AA is a cartoon and it is therefore permissible for it to be ridiculous and silly and also I can bring in characters and ideas that exist in other parts of Marvel canon and use them differently in the realms of AA. Like I did with the idea of [Chthon](http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Chthon_\(Earth-616\)).
> 
> Also I actually did the math. According to google the [population density in NYC is 27000 per square mile](https://www.google.com/search?q=population+density+in+nyc&rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS436US436&oq=population+density+in+nyc&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.10563j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8). There’s [20 short blocks in a mile](https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+blocks+in+a+mile&rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS436US436&oq=how+many+blocks+in+a+mile&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.7013j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#safe=off&q=how+many+blocks+in+a+square+mile+nyc), which means 1350 people per short block. (I am a suburbanite so … I’m not really sure what the difference between a short block and a long block is.) So given the effective radius of one block and the number of affected people being 20 to 25 that means about one of every 55 to 67 people were wearing a costume. Is that math right? I did it at like 11 at night so? And I don’t know if I did the math because I was tired or because I was curious because it doesn't actually come up in the fic. Whatever. Of course since most of them were costume shopping the average number of people in the area might be slightly off because it would be more retail stores than homes, but this is why an average is an average.
> 
> Yes anyway Happy Halloween!!


End file.
